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TracyMICHELANGELO ANTONIONI'S DEATH IN REAL LIFE AND THE BIG SCREEN
August 2nd 2007 08:24
The death of the influential Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni at 94, on the same day as Ingmar Bergman's death, removes another important figure from the European art house scene. But, unlike Bergman, sadly, Antonioni's period of creativity ended long before his actual death late on Monday night.
I didn't see his last film but apparently it was not that great. Apparently, admirers his work winced at his last picture, a toe-curlingly dated and maladroit "erotic" cine-novella in 2004 called The Dangerous Thread of Things and released as part of a triple-bill of short films, called Eros, by Antonioni, Wong Kar-Wai and Steven Soderbergh.
But decades before this, Antonioni created stunningly powerful pictures with inspired images and themes. The most prominent was his black-and-white trilogy of the early '60s, The Eclipse, The Night and The Adventure. These films made a decisive break with the neo-realism of directors such as Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini; they were fluent, hallucinatory, triangulating a new world between dream, nightmare and ordinary waking reality. Incredible stuff.
His films seemed effortlessly atmospheric, often making their starting point the ennui of Italy's leisured and fashionable classes, but transformed that into a wider sense of alienation, a further questioning of day-to-day existence. At its best, his film-making transmitted a glimpse of what it found to be mysterious and occult forces at work beneath the "real" world.
As his career progressed in the 60s and 70s, he made films in English such as Zabriskie Point, his identity-swap drama The Passenger, with Jack Nicholson, and, most famously, Blow-up, the 1966 film for which he, rightly or wrongly, is most remembered.
What a pity. Does anyone have any films that particularly stand out for them? For me, it is The Passenger which I saw not that long ago at the good old Chauvel.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
The Passenger is an understated masterpiece and Blow Up stands as a revolution. (Though I prefer De Palma's audio reworking Blow Out)
Much of his early work is rich in new ideas and inventive visual storytelling...moody and evocative his great works still seem fresh and his understanding of film language his own.
A sad day for the world of cinema, Antonioni you will be missed.
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
Good to see you, are you feeling better? Yes, The Passenger was a stand out but I haven't seen Blow Up yet. But it's on my very long 'to see' list.
I love this description of yours:
Yes, he will be missed.
Tracy
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Well, they had fairly long and full lives, which is one compensation, but, in the circle of directors today, there is no replacement for either of them that comes ot mind.
Some great movies, and always great cinematography....sadly missed...
Oh....and great piece of journalese old gurrrl!!!!
fog
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
Yes, I didn't realise they had died either until I was looking through news on films. What an eerie coincidence that they died on the same day.
I have to admit that I haven’t seen enough Ingmar films, I will have to rectify that!
Thanks for popping in,
Tracy